Terje Haakonsen, Rip Zinger, Russel Winfield, JP Martin, and Dave Seoane spin laps off the Sunrise Express Chair. Bend’s own Austin Smith, Curtis Ciszek, and Jake Price barge practice laps with Bryan Fox and Scott E. Wittlake. Temple Cummins cruises runs with his son Cannon. Rome’s Bjorn Leines, Marie-France Roy, Jordan Phillips, Derrek Lever, Victor Simco, and Cody Booth, huck as many hit run backflips as they can for their 12 Months project. But no matter what’s going on before or after their banked slalom runs, everyone talks strategy: Which course to qualify on, which wax to use, how to milk the most speed out of the berms, to air or to pump? Despite the loose vibe there’s an edge of seriousness that creeps in—heavy bragging rights are at stake especially for the Elite division riders like Smith, Wittlake, Ciszek, and Price. Side bets are made among crews with losers facing such consequences as hair-dying and piercings. Rumors of rider’s buying 150 dollar bars of wax spread. Boards are baked in “hot box” wax ovens.

As this scene plays out at Mt. Bachelor the snow keeps coming down, collecting inches deep on the rows of cars in the Sunrise lodge parking lot. Mixed among them there’s Nick Dirk’s Vantasy van, a relic from the ‘70s that’s been jacked-up and kitted with four-wheel-drive. With a balaclava clad Dirks behind the wheel this thing is either your worst nightmare or the best thing you’ve ever seen (depending on your previous experience with vans). There’s the tricked-out ’93 Subaru Loyale of the newly formed Go Boardin crew of Alex Yoder, Kael Martin, Blake Paul, Sam Tuor, and Lucas Debari (his sister Maria filling in on this trip while Lucas is in Antarctica). There’s Matt Edger’s ’76 Toyota Chinook camper, his home away from home.

It’s all the backdrop to one of snowboarding’s most fun events, which drew close to 500 people this year. And it’s all put on by Josh Dirksen to help benefit Tyler Eklund, who was paralyzed in a crash at the USASA Nationals in 2007, and to raise awareness about spinal cord injuries. The charity event brought in over 30,000 dollars, almost doubling the 17,000 dollars raised last year.